Document

This document was designed to help educate policy makers and legislators about postsecondary education (PSE) opportunities for people with intellectual disability. This sheet can be used when meeting with politicians to educate and advocate for PSE for people with intellectual disability; it can be shared with them directly or left with their staff. Included on this information sheet are some questions and answers and statistics about how PSE improves outcomes for people with intellectual disability. 

The National Coordinating Center (NCC) provides support, coordination, training, and evaluation for Transition and Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabilities (TPSID) model demonstration project grantees. These TPSID grantees were tasked with creating, expanding, or enhancing high-quality, inclusive postsecondary education programs to support positive outcomes for individuals with intellectual disabilities (e.g., educational attainment, employment, and community inclusion).

In response to student need and the HEOA, California developed a unique partnership between Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) and selected Community Colleges to create College to Career (C2C) Programs. This practice brief describes PSE programs for students with ID in general and development of the C2C programs. It also shares student outcome data and implications from the C2C programs which may be applicable to other colleges and universities as they strive to meet the PSE needs of students with ID on their campuses.

Think College REPORTS present descriptive data in narrative or tabular form to provide timely information to researchers, practitioners, and policymakers for review and use. This report provides summary data about students from the Year 1 (2015-2016) Transition and Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabilities.

Think College Insight Brief #31 explains the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, and describes how it affects family communication related to college students.  It shares how "parent" is defined in the Act, as well as educational record and other key terms.  It also offers advice to families and students as they negotiate this change in status from a high school students to a college student and the new role that family plays.

Eligible students with intellectual disabilities are able to access federal financial aid when they attend inclusive postsecondary education programs that have been approved as Comprehensive Transition and Postsecondary (CTP) programs. This webinar from 2017 covered what a CTP program is and why programs should consider applying for this approval. It shares practical advice on the application process and tips on how to write a successful application to become a CTP. Resource includes the Power Point presentation slides and webinar transcript.

This Fast Fact summarizes a recent study by Anthony Plotner and Cindi May that focuses on exploring the perspectives of students with ID about college, including their motivations for going to college and their perceptions of academic, social, and residential life. We also examined their perceptions of on- and off-campus support and their sense of belonging on campus, and compared the experiences of students with and without ID.

This Fact Sheet provides an overview of the mission and goals of Think College projects (National Coordinating Center, Inclusive Higher Education Network, Future Quest Island: Explorations, and Transition Leadership) at the Institute for Community Inclusion at UMass Boston.

This article describes how 12 pre-service teachers who participated in an inclusive liberal learning understood their experience. The analysis of interviews with these pre-service teachers suggests that they emerged from the course with a commitment to the idea that students with intellectual disabilities have a right to a challenging liberal education.

Massachusetts youth with significant disabilities, ages 18 to 22, have new opportunities to enter postsecondary education and employment options while still under the auspices of their local school districts. This article describes how an interagency partnership of adult service agencies, the Community Based Employment Services (CBES) program, was utilized by high school-based Youth Support Teams (YSTs) to develop a new individual support model of collaborative funding for transition-aged youth.